 Chapter 14 of the Trial This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nancy Cochran-Gergen, Gilbert, Arizona. The Trial by Charlotte Mary Young, Chapter 14. Ha! I'm mind me now of pronging faces, mocking-eyed and eager. As for sport, hundreds looking up and in high places men arrayed for judgment and a court. And I heard, or seemed to hear, one seeking answered back from one he doomed to die, pitifully, sadly, sternly speaking unto one, and oh, that one, twas eye. Rev. G. E. Mansell. The bluer murder was the case of the Assized Week, and the court was so crowded that, but for the favor of the sheriff, Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, with Tom and Gertrude, could hardly have obtained seats. No others of the family could endure to behold the scene, except from necessity. And indeed Ethel and Mary had taken charge of the sisters at home, for Henry could not remain at a distance from his brother, though unable to bear the sight of the proceedings. He remained in a house at hand. Nearly the whole population of Stoneborough, Whitford, and Bluer was driving to press into court, but before the day's work began, Edward Anderson had piloted Mrs. Pugh to a commodious place under the escort of his brother Harvey, who was collecting materials for an article on criminal jurisprudence. Some of those who, like the widow and little Gertrude, had been wild to be present, felt their hearts fail them when the last previous case had been disposed of. And there was a brief pause of grave and solemn suspense and silent breathless expectation within the court, unbroken, except by increased sounds of crowding in all the avenues without. Everyone, except the mere loungers, who craved nothing but excitement, looked odd and anxious, and the impression was deepened by the perception that the same feeling, though restrained, affected the judge himself, and was visible in the anxious attention with which he looked at the papers before him, and the stern sadness that had come over the features to actually full of kindness and benevolence. The prisoner appeared in the dock. He had become paler, and perhaps thinner, for his square-determined jaw and the resolute mole of his lips were more than usually remarkable and were noted in the physiognomical brain of Harvey Anderson, as well as the keen light of his full, dark, hazel eye, the breadth of his brow, with his shining light-brown hair brushed back from it, the strong build of his frame, and the determined force apparent even in the perfect quiescence of his attitude. Leonard Axworthy Ward was arraigned for the willful murder of Francis Actworthy and asked whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty. His voice was earnest, distinct, and firm, and his eyes were raised upwards, as though he were making the plea of not guilty, not to man alone, but to the judge of all the earth. The officer of the court informed him of his right to challenge any of the jury, as they were called over by name, and as each came to be sworn, he looked full and steadily at each face, more than one of which was known to him by sight, as if he were committing his cause into their hands. He declined to challenge, and then crossing his arms on his breast, cast down his eyes, and thus retained them through the greater part of the trial. The jurymen were then sworn in and charged with the issue, and the counsel for the prosecution opened the case, speaking more as if in pity than indignation, as he sketched the history, which it was his painful duty to establish. He described how Mr. Axworthy, having spent the more active years of his life in foreign trade, had finally returned to pass his old age among his relatives, and had taken to assist him in his business a great nephew, and latterly another youth in the same degree of relation, the son of his late niece, the prisoner, who on leaving school had been taken into his uncle's office, lodged in the house, and became one of the family. He would, however, be shown by witnesses that the situation had been extremely irksome to the young man, and that he had not been in it many months before he had expressed his intention of absconding, provided he could obtain the means of making his way in one of the colonies. Then followed a summary of the deductions resulting from the evidence about to be adduced, and which carried upon its face the inference that the absence of the cousin, the remoteness of the room, the sight of a large sum of money, and the helplessness of the old man had proved temptation too strong for a fiery and impatient youth, long fretted by their strains of his situation, and had conducted him to violence, robbery, and flight. It was a case that could not be regarded without great regret and compassion, but the gentlemen of the jury must bear in mind in their investigation that pitting must not be permitted to distort the facts, which he feared were only too obvious. This speech was infinitely more telling from its fair and commiserating tone towards the prisoner, and the impression that it carried, not that he was to be persecuted by having crime fastened on him, but that truth must be sought out at all hazards. Even he is sorry for Leonard, I don't hate him as I thought I should, whispered Gertrude May to her elder sister. The first witness was, as before, the young maid servant Anne Ellis, who described her first discovery of the body, and on farther interrogation, the situation of the room distant from those of the servants, and out of hearing, also her master's ordinary condition of feebleness. She had observed nothing in the room, or on the table, but knew the window was open, since she had run to it, and screamed for help upon which Master Hardy had come to her aid. The first counsel then elicited from her how low the window was, and how easily it could be entered from without. James Hardy corroborated all this, giving a more minute account of the state of the room, and telling of his going to call the young gentleman, and finding the open passage window and empty bedroom. The passage window would naturally be closed at night, and there was no reason to suppose that Mr. Ward would be absent. The bag shown to him was one that had originally been paid for the keeping of cash, but laterally had been used for samples of grain, and he had last seen it in the office. The counsel for the prisoner inquired what had been on the table at Hardy's first entrance, but to this the witness could not swear, except that the lamp was burning, and that there were no signs of disorder, nor was the dress of the deceased disarranged. He had seen his master put receipts, and make memorandums, in a large, black, silver-class pocketbook, but had never handled it, and could not swear to it. He had seen nothing like it since his master's death. He was further asked how long the prisoner had been at the mill. His duties there, and the amount of trust reposed in him, to which last the answer was, that about a month since Mr. Axworthy had exclaimed that if ever he wanted a thing to be done, he must set Ward about it. During this speech made an irritation at some omission on Sampspark. Nothing was adduced to show that Leonard was likely to have been employed without his cousin's knowledge, though Hardy volunteered the addition that Mr. Ward was always respectful and attentive, and that his uncle had likely thought much more of him than at first. Rebecca Giles gave her account of the scene in the sitting room. She had been in the service of the deceased for the last four years, and before, in that of his sister-in-law, Mr. Samuel's mother. She had herself close the passage window at seven o'clock in the evening, as usual. She had several times previously found it partly open in the morning, after having thus shut it overnight. But never before, Mr. Ward's bed unslept in. Her last interview with Mr. Axworthy was then narrated, with his words, an implication against rifle practice as an excuse for idle young rascals to be always out of the way. Then followed her communication to the prisoner at half past nine, when she saw him go into the parter, in his volunteer uniform, rifle in hand, heard him turn the lock of the sitting room door, and then herself retired to bed. Cross examination did not do much with her, only showing that, when she brought in the supper, one window had been open, and the blinds, common calico ones, drawn down, thus rendering it possible for a person to lurk unseen in the court, and enter by the window. Her master had assigned no reason for sending for Mr. Ward. She did not know whether Mr. Axworthy had any memorandum book. She had seen none on the table, nor found any when she undressed the body, though his purse, watch, and seals were on his person. After Rankin's medical evidence came next, both as to the cause of death, the probable instrument, and the nature of the stains on the desk and rifle. When Cross examined, he declared that he had looked at the volunteer uniform without finding any mark of blood, but from the nature of the injury it was not likely that there would be any. He had attended Mr. Axworthy for several years, and had been visiting him professionally during a fit of the gout in the last fortnight of June, when he had observed that the prisoner was very attentive to his uncle. Mr. Axworthy was always unwilling to be waited on, but was unusually tolerant of this nephew's exertions on his behalf, and had seemed of late to place much reliance on him. Dr. Richard May was the next witness-call. The sound of that name caused the first visible change in the prisoner's demeanor, if that could be called change, which was only a slight relaxation of the firm closing of the lips, and one sparkle of the dark eyes ere they were again bent down as before, though not without a quiver of the lids. Dr. May had brought tone, look, and manner to the grave impartiality which even the most sensitive man is drilled into assuming in public, but he durst not cast one glance in the direction of the prisoner. In answer to the counsel for the prosecution, he stated that he was at the ventry mill at seven o'clock on the morning of the sixth of July, not professionally, but as taking interest in the word family. He had seen the body of the deceased, and considered death to have been occasioned by fracture of the skull from a blow with a blunt heavy instrument. The superintendent had shown him a rifle, which he considered, from the marks on it, as well as from the appearance of the body, to have produced the injury. The rifle was once shown to him. It was a property of Leonard Ward. He recognized it by the crest and cipher, H.E. It had belonged to a son-in-law, Hector Ernstcliffe, by whom it had been given to Leonard Ward. Poor doctor! That was a cruel piece of evidence, and his son and daughter's opposite wondered how he could utter it in that steady, matter-of-fact way. But they knew him to be sustained by hopes of the cross-examination, and he soon had the opportunity of declaring that he had known Leonard Ward from infancy without being aware of any imputation against him, but had always seen him highly principled and trustworthy, truthful and honorable, kind-hearted and humane, the last person to injure the infirm or agent. Perhaps the good doctor less afraid of the sound of his own voice, and not so much in awe as some of the other witnesses, here in his eagerness overstepped the bounds of prudence. His words indeed brought a tremulous flicker of grateful emotion over the prisoner's face, but by carrying the inquiry into the region of character and opinion, he opened the door to a dangerous re-examination by the crown lawyer, who required the exact meaning of his unqualified commendation, especially in the matter of humanity, demanding whether he had never known of any act of violence on the prisoner's part. The color flushed suddenly into Leonard's face, though he moved neither eye nor lip, but his counsel appealed to the judge, and the pursuit of this branch of the subject was quashed as irrelevant, but the doctor went down in very low spirits, feeling that his evidence had been damaging and his hopes of any ray of light becoming fainter. After this the village policeman repeated the former statements as to the state of the various rooms, the desk, locked and untouched, the rifle, boat, and sea, further explaining that the distance from the mill to Bloor station by the road was an hour and a half squat by the fields not more than half an hours. The stationmaster proved the prisoner's arrival at midnight is the man of a day ticket, he's being without luggage, and in a black suit, and the London police then proved the finding of the money on his person and repeated his own explanation of it. The money was all in sovereigns except one five and one ten pound note, and Edward Haslett, the clerk of the Whitford bank, was called to prove that having given the latter a change to Mr. Axworthy for a fifty pound check on the tenth of May last. The same clerk had been at the volunteer drill on the evening of the fifth of July, had there seen the prisoner had parted with him at dusk, towards nine o'clock, making an engagement with him to meet on Bloor Heath for some private practice at seven o'clock on Monday evening, though Mr. Axworthy did sometimes employ a ward on his commissions. Mr. Axworthy had once sent him into Whitford to pay in a large sum, and another time with an order to be cashed. The dates of these transactions were shown in the books, and Haslett added, on further interrogation, that Samuel Axworthy could not have been aware of the sum being sent to the bank, since he had shortly after come and desired to see the account which had been laid before him as confidential manager when he had shown surprise and annoyance at the recent deposit, asking through whom it had been made. Not ten days subsequently, an order for nearly the entire amount had been cashed, signed by the deceased, but filled up in Samuel's handwriting. This had taken place in April, and another witness, a baker proved the heaven paid the five pound note to old Mr. Axworthy himself on the second of May. Samuel Axworthy himself was next called. His forward face were something of the puff stupefied look it had had at the inquest, but his words were ready, and always to the point. He identified the bag in which the money had been found, giving an account of it similar to Hardy's, and adding that he had last seen it lying by his cousin's desk. This uncle had no account with any London bank. All transactions had of late passed through his own hands, and he had never known the person employed in any business of importance. He could not have been kept in ignorance of it if it had previously been the case. The deceased had a black chagrin pocketbook with a silver clasp which he occasionally used, but the witness had never known him to give it out of his own hand, nor take a receipt in it, had not seen it on the morning of the sixth, nor subsequently. Could not account for the sum found on the person of the prisoner, whose salary was fifty pounds per annum, and who had no private resources, except the interest of two thousand pounds, which, he being a minor, was not in his own hands. Deceased was fond of amassing sovereigns, and would often keep them for a long time in the drawer of his desk, as much as from fifty pounds to a hundred pounds. There was none there when the desk was open on the sixth of July, though there had certainly been gold there two days previously. It was kept locked. It had a small Brahma key, which his uncle wore on his watch chain in his waistcoat pocket. The drawer was locked when he saw it on the morning of the sixth. The doctor, who had joined his children, gave a deep respiration and relaxed the clenching of his hand as this witness went down. Then it came to the turn of Aubrey Spencer May. The long waiting, after his nerves had been wound up, had been a severe ordeal, and his delicacy of constitution and home-breeding had rendered him peculiarly susceptible. With his resemblance to his father in form and expression, it was like seeing the doctor denuded of that shell of endurance with which he had contrived to conceal his feelings. The boy was indeed braced to resolution, that the resolution was equally visible with the agitation in the ostrich and brow, varying color, tightened breath, and involuntary shiver as he took the oath. Again Leonard looked up with one of his clear bright glances and perhaps a shade of anxiety, but Aubrey, for his own comfort, was too short-sighted for meeting a vice from that distance. Seeing his agitation and wrecking on his evidence, the council gave him time by minutely asking if his double-Christian name were correctly given, his age, and if he were not the son of Dr. May. You were the prisoner's school fellow, I believe? No, altered Aubrey. But you live near him? We are friends, said Aubrey, with sudden firmness and precision, and from the utterance of that emphatic, are his spirit returned. Did you often see him? On most Sundays after church. Did you ever hear him say he had any thoughts of the means of leaving the mill privately? Something like it, said Aubrey, turning gray-red. Can you tell me the words? He said if things went on that I was not to be surprised if I heard non-est and ventus, said Aubrey, speaking as if rapidity would conceal the meaning of the words, but taken it back by being made to repeat and translate them to the jury. And did he mention any way of escaping? He said the window and cedar tree were made for it, and that he often went out that way to bathe, said Aubrey. When did this conversation take place? On Sunday, the 22nd of June, said Aubrey, in despair, as a crown lawyer thanked him and sat down. He felt himself betrayed into having made their talk, where the air of deliberate purpose, and having said not one word of what Mr. Bramshaw had hailed as hopeful. However, the defending barrister rose up to ask him what he meant by having answered something like it. Because, said Aubrey promptly, though we did make the scheme, we were neither of us in earnest. How do you know the prisoner was not in earnest? We often made plans of what we should like to do. And had you any reason for thinking this one of such plans? Yes, said Aubrey, for he talked of getting gold enough to build up the market cross, or else of going to see the Fiji Islands. Then you understood the prisoner not to express a deliberate purpose, so much as a fake design. Just so, said Aubrey, a design that depended on how things went on at the mill, and being desired to explain his words, he added. That Leonard had said he could not bear the sight of Sam Axworthy's tyranny over the old man, and was resolved not to stay if he were made a party to any of the dishonest tricks of the train. In that case, did he say where he would have gone? First to New Zealand, to my brother, the Reverend Norman May. Leonard's counsel was satisfied with the color the conversation had now assumed. But the perils of reexamination were not over yet, for the adverse lawyer requested to know once the funds were to have come for this adventurous voyage. We left a little about that, and he said he should have to try how far his quarter salary would go towards a passage in the steerage. If your friend expressed so strongly distaste to his employers and their business, what induced him to enter it? Leonard's counsel again objected to this inquiry, and it was not permitted. Aubrey was dismissed and, flushed and giddy, was met by his brother Tom, who almost took him in his arms as he merged from the passage. Oh, Tom, what have I done? Famously provided there's no Miller in the jury. Come, as he felt the weight on his arm. Laura says I am to take you down and make you take something. No, no, no, I can't. I must go back. I tell you there's nothing going on. Everyone is breathing and bathing, and he got him safe to a pastry cooks and administered branded cherries, which are revolted, whole like hills, only in treating to return and wanting to know how he thought the case going. Excellently has let's evidence in yours are to carry him through. And Anderson says they have made so much out of the witnesses for the prosecution that they need call none for the defense, and so the enemy will be balked of their reply, and we shall have the last word. I vow I have missed my location. I know I was born for a barrister. Now may we come back, said the boy, overwhelmed by his brother's cheeriness, and they squeezed in the court again, Tom inserting Aubrey into his own former seat and standing behind him on half a foot at the angle of the passage. They were in time for the opening of the defense. And to hear Leonard described as a youth of spirit and promise, of a disposition that had won him general affection and esteem, and recommended to universal sympathy by the bereavement which was recent in the memory of his fellow townsmen, and there was a glance at the morning which the boy still wore. They had heard indeed that he was quick tempered and impulsive, but the gentlemen of the jury were some of them fathers, and he put it to them whether a ready and generous spirit of indignation in a lad were compatible with cowardly designs against helpless old age, whether one whose recreations were natural science and manly exercise showed tokens of vicious tendencies. Above all, whether a youth whose friendship they had seen so touchingly claimed by a son of one of the most highly respected gentlemen in the county, were evincing the propensities that lead to the perpetration of deeds of darkness. Tom had a Aubrey on the shoulder, and Aubrey, though murdering Humbug, was by some degree less wretched. Men did not change their nature on a sudden the council continued, and where was the probability that a youth of character entirely unblemished and of a disposition particularly humane and generous should at once rush into a crime of the deep and deadly description to which a long course of dissipation leading to perplexity, distress and despair would be the only inducement? He then went on to speak of Leonard's position at the mill as junior clerk. He had been there for six months without a flaw being detected, either in his integrity, his diligence or his regularity. Indeed, it was evident that he had been gradually acquiring a greater degree of esteem and confidence than he had at first enjoyed and had been laterally more employed by his uncle, that a young man of superior education should find a daily drudgery tedious and distasteful, and that one of sensitive honor should be startled at the ordinary. He might also say proverbial, customs of the Miller's trade, was surprising to no one, and that he should unbosom himself to a friend of his own age and indulge together with him in romantic visions of adventure was, to all who remember their own boyhood, an illustration of the freshness and ingenuousness of the character that thus unfolded itself. Where there were daydreams, there was no room for plots of crime, then ensued a species of apology through the necessity of entering into particulars that did not rebound to the credit of a gentleman who had appeared before the court under such distressing circumstances as Mr. Samuel Axworthy, but it was needful that the condition of the family should be well understood in order to comprehend the unhappy train of events which had conducted the prisoner into his present situation. He then went through what had been traceable through the evidence, that Samuel Axworthy was a man of expensive habits and accustomed to drain his uncle's resources to supply his own needs, showing how the son, which had been entrusted to the prisoner to be paid into the local bank, had been drawn out by the elder nephew as soon as he became aware of the deposit, and how, shortly after, the prisoner had expressed to opumé his indignation at the tyranny exercised on his uncle. By and by, another sum is amassed, continued Leonard's advocate. How disposed of it? The local bank has evidently no security from the rapacity of the elder nephew. Once aware of his existence, he knows how to use means for compelling its surrender, and the feeble old man can no longer call his ardor and gain his own, except on sufferance. The only means of guarding it is to lodge it secretly in a distant bank, without the suspicion of his nephew, Samuel. But the invalid is too infirm to leave his apartment, his fingers crippled by gout, refuse even to guide the pen. He can only watch for an opportunity, and this is at length afforded by the absence of the elder nephew for two days at the county races. This will afford time for a trustworthy and intelligent messenger to convey to some to town, deposit it in Mrs. Drummond's bank, and return unobserved. When, therefore, supper is brought in, Mr. Axworthy stands for the lad on whom he has learned to depend, and shows much disappointment at his absence. Where is he? Is he engaged with low companions in the haunts of vice that are the declavity towards crime? Is he gaming, or betting, or drinking? No. He has obeyed the summons of his country. He is a zealous volunteer and is eagerly using a weapon presented to him by a highly respected gentleman of large fortune in the neighboring county, named so far as he from any sinister purpose that he is making an appointment with a fellow rifleman for the ensuing Monday. On his return at dark, he receives a pressing summons to his uncle's room, and hastens to obey it without causing filializide's rifle. The commission is explained and well understanding the painfulness of the cause, he discreetly asks no questions, but prepares to execute it. The sum of a hundred twenty-four pounds while shillings is taken from the drawer of the desk, the odd money assigned to traveling expenses, the one hundred twenty pounds placed in a bag brought in from the office for the purpose, bearing the initials of the owner, and a receipt in a private pocketbook was signed by him for the amount and left open on the table for the ink to dry. Who that has ever been young can doubt the zest and elevation of receiving for the first time a confidential mission. Who can doubt that even the favorite weapon would be forgotten where it stood, and that it would only be according to accredited rules that the window should be preferable to the door? Had it not already figured in the visions of adventure in the Sunday evenings walk, was it not a favorite mode of exit in the mornings when bathing and fishing were more attractive than the pillow? Moreover, the moonlight disclosed would appear like a figure in the courtyard, and there was reason at the time to suppose that a person likely to observe and report upon the expedition. The opening of the front door might likewise attract notice, and if the cousin should, as was possible, return that night, the direct road was the way to meet him. The hour was too early for the train which was too net, but a lighted candle would reveal the vigil, and moonlight on the meadows was attractive at eighteen. The gentlemen of sober and mature years might be incredulous, but surely it was not so strange or unusual for a lad who indulged in visions of adventure to find a moonlight walk by the riverside more inviting than a bedroom. Shortly after, perhaps as soon as the light was extinguished, the murder must have been committed. The very presence of that light had been guardianship to the helpless old man below. When it was quenched, nothing remained to stir. The way from where that was open, the weapon stood only too ready to hand. The memorandum book gave promise of booty and was secured, though nothing else was apparently touched. It was this very book that contained the signature that would have exonerated the prisoner, and to which he fearlessly appealed upon his arrest at the Paddington station before, for his additional misfortune, he had time to discharge himself of his commission, and establish his innocence by the deposit of the money at the bank. He has thus for a while become the victim of a web of suspicious circumstances. But look at these very circumstances more closely, and they will be found perfectly consistent with the prisoner's statement, never varying, be it remembered, from the explanation given to the policeman in first surprise and horror of the tidings of the crime. It might have been perhaps thought that there was another alternative between entire innocence and a deliberate purpose of robbery and murder, namely, that reproof from the old man had provoked a blow, and that the means of flight had been hastily seized upon in the moment of confusion and alarm. This might have been a plausible line of defense, and secure of a favorable hearing, but I beg to state that the prisoner has distinctly refused any such defense, and my instructions are to contend for his perfect innocence. A nature such as we have already traced is, as we cannot but perceive, revolted by the bare idea of violence to the aged and infirm, and recoils as strongly from the one accusation as from the other. The prisoner made his statement at the first moment, and has adhered to it in every detail, without confusion or self-contradiction. It does not attempt to explain all the circumstances, but they all tally exactly with his story. He is unable to show by whom the crime could have been committed, nor is he bound in law or justice, so to do. Nay, his own story shows the absolute impossibility of his being able to explain what took place in his absence, but mark how completely the established facts corroborate his narrative. Observe first the position in which the body was found, the head on the desk, the stain of blood corresponding with the wound, the dress undisturbed, all manifestly untouched since the fatal stroke was dealt. Could this have been the case had the key of the drawer of gold been taken from the waistcoat pocket, the chain from about the neck of the deceased, and both replaced after the removal of the money and relocking the drawer? Can anyone doubt that the drawer was opened, the money taken out, and the lock secured, while Mr. Axworthy was alive and consenting? Again, what robber would convey away the spoil in a bag bearing the initials of the owner, and that not caught up in haste, but fetched in for the purpose from the office? Or would so tell tale a weapon as the rifle had been left conspicuously close at hand? There was no guilty precipitation, for the uniform had been taken off and folded up, and with a whole night before him, it would have been easy to reach a more distant station, where his person would not have been recognized. Why, too, if this were the beginning of a flight and exile, should no preparation have been made for passing a single night from home? Why should a date ticket have been asked for? No, the prisoner's own straightforward, unvarnished statement is the only consistent interpretation of the facts, otherwise conflicting and incomprehensible. That a murder has been committed is unhappily too certain. I make no attempt to unravel a mystery. I confine myself to the far more grateful task of demonstrating that to fasten the imputation on the accused would be to overlook a complication of inconsistencies, all explained by his own account of himself, but utterly inexplicable on the hypothesis of his guilt. Circumstantial evidence is universally acknowledged to be perilous ground for a conviction. And I never saw a case in which it was more manifestly delusive than in the present, bearing at first an imposing and formidable aspect, but on examination, confuted in every detail. Most assuredly, continued the council, his voice becoming deadly earnest, while there is even the possibility of innocence, it becomes incumbent on you, gentlemen of the jury, to consider well the fearful consequences of a decision in a matter of life or death, a decision for which there can be no reversal. The facts that have come to light are manifestly incomplete. Another lake in the chain has yet to be added, and when it shall come forth, how will it be if it should establish the guiltlessness of the prisoner too late? Too late when a young life of high promise and linked by close family ties and by bonds of ardent friendship with so many has been quenched in shame and disgrace for a crime to which he may be an utter stranger. The extinction of the light in that upper window was the sign for darkness and horror to descend on the mill. Here is the light of life, still burning, but a breath of yours can extinguish it in utter gloom. And then who may rekindle it? May the revelation of events that would make the transactions of that fatal night clear as the noon day would never avail to rekindle the lamp. That may yet, I trust, shine forth to the world. The clearer it may be from the unmerited imputations which it has been my part to combat and of which his entire life is a computation. Mrs. Pugh was sobbing under her veil. Gertrude felt the cause one. Tom Noyce will sit clap the orator behind his brother's back and nodded his approval to his father. Even Leonard lifted up his face and shot across the look as if he felt deliverance near after the weary day that seemed to have been a lifetime already though the sunbeams were only beginning to fall high and yellow on the ceiling through the heated stifling atmosphere heavy with anxiety and suspense. Dr. May was thinking of the meeting after the acquittal of the telegram to Stoneborough of the Sisters revival and of Ethel's greeting. Still the judge had to sum up and all eyes turned on him knowing that the fate of the accused would probably depend on the coloring that the facts adduced would assume in his hands. Flora who met him in society was struck by the grave and melancholy bracing as it were of the countenance that she had seen as kindly and bright as her father's and the deep full voice sad rather than stern the very tone of which conveyed to every mind how heavy was the responsibility of justice and impartiality in effect the very force of the persuasions made for the defense unanswered by the prosecution rendered it needful for him to give full way to the evidence for the other side namely the prisoners evident impatience of his position and premeditated plight the coincidence of the times the being the last person seen to another room and with the very weapon that had been the instrument of the crime the probability that the deceased had himself open the drawer the open window the flight and the missing sound being found on this person the allegation that the receipt will be found in the pocket book unsupported by any testimony as to the practice of the deceased the strangeness of leaving the premises so much too early for the train and by his own account leaving a person prowling in the court close to his uncle's window no opinion was given but there was something that gave a sense that the judge felt it a crushing weight of evidence yet so minutely was every point examined so carefully was every indication way which could tend to establish the prisoner's innocence that to those among his audience who believe that innocence indubitable is seen as if his arguments proved it even more triumphantly than the pleading of the council as vibrating between hope and fear anxiety and gratitude they followed him from point to point of the unhappy incident hanging upon every word as though each were decisive when at length he ceased and the jury retired the breathless stillness continued with son indeed there was the relaxation of long strained attention eyes unbent and heads turned but Flora had to pass the child's nervous trembling Aubrey sat rigid and upright the throbs of his heart well like audible and doctor may lean forward and covered his eyes with his hand Tom who alone dared Glenitz to the dock saw that Leonard too had retired those were the most terrible minutes they had ever spent in their lives but they were minutes of hope of hope of relief from a birthing becoming more intolerable with every seconds delay seemed to them it was not in reality more than a quarter of an hour before the jury returned and with slow grave movements and serious countenances resumed their places Leonard was already in his his cheek paler his fingers locked together and his eyes scanning each as they came forward and one by one their names were called over his head was erect and his bearing had something undaunted though intensely was put by the clerk of the court how find you guilty or not guilty firmly though sadly the foreman rose and his answer was we find the prisoner guilty but we earnestly recommend him to mercy whether Tom felt or not that Aubrey was in a dead faint and rested against him as a senseless weight he paid no visible attention to odd but one face as the nothing would ever detach them and that face was not the prisoners other solid it's face raised upwards and a deep red flush spread over brow and cheek though neither lip nor eye wavered then came the question whether the prisoner had anything to say where for judgment should not be passed upon him Leonard made a step forward and his clear steady tongue did not shake for a moment as that appearances are so much against me that men can hardly decide otherwise I have known from the first that nothing could show my innocence but the finding of the receipt in the absence of that one testimony I feel that I have had a fair trial and that all has been done for me that could be done and I thank you for it my lord and you gentlemen as he bent his head then added I should like to say one thing more the question be asked how I brought all this upon myself I wish to say myself for it is that which makes my sentence just in the side of God it is true that though I never lifted my hand against my poor uncle I did in a moment of passion fling a stone at my brother which but for God's mercy might indeed have made me a murderer it was for this and other like outbreaks that I was sent to the mill and it may be just that for it I should die though indeed I never hurt my uncle perhaps there was something that tone of that one word indeed which by recalling his extreme youth touched all hearts more than even the manly tone of his answer and his confession there was a universal weeping and sobbing throughout the court Mrs. Pugh was on the verge of hysterics and obliged to be supported away and Gertured was choking between the agony of contagious feeling and dread of florida's pleasure and all the time Leonard stood calm with his brave head and lofty bearing wound up for the awful moment of the sentence the weeping was hushed when the crier of the court made proclamation commanding all persons on pain of imprisonment to be silent then the judge placed on his head the black cap and it was with trembling hands that he did so the blood had entirely left his face and his lips were purple with a struggle to contend with and suppress his emotion he paused as so he were girding himself up to the most terrible of duties and when he spoke his voice was hollow as he began Leonard acts worthy word you have been found guilty of a crime that would have appeared impossible in one removed from communication by birth and education such as yours have been what the steps may have been that led to such guilt must lie between your own conscience and that God whose justice you have acknowledged to him you have evidently been taught to look and may you use the short time that still remains to you in seeking his forgiveness by sincere repentance I will forward the recommendation to mercy but it is my duty to warn you that there are no such paliating circumstances in the evidence as to warrant any expectation of a remission of the sentence and there would follow the customary form of sentence ending with the solemn and may God Almighty have mercy on your soul full and open and never quailing had the dark eyes been fixed upon the judge all the time and at those last words they had bent low and the lips moved for amen then Tom relieved to find instant occupation for his father drew his attention to Aubrey's state and the boy between Tom and George Rivers was as best they could carried through the narrow outlets and laid down in a room open to them by the sheriff where his father and Flora attended him while Tom flew for remedies and Gertrude sobbed and wept as she had never done in her life it was some time before the swoon yielded or Dr. May could leave his son and then he was bent on at once going to the prisoner but he was so shaken and tremulous that Tom insisted on giving him his arm and held an umbrella over him in the driving rain father he said as soon as they were in the street I can swear who did it Dr. May just hindered himself from uttering the name but Tom answered as if it had been spoken yes I saw the face of fiendish barbarity that once was over me when I was a miserable little schoolboy he did it and he has the receipt Dr. May squeezed his arm I have not betray the secret have I you knew that he knew it not new suspected generosity I saw him I saw him cast those imploring earnest eyes of his on the scoundrel as he spoke of the receipt and the villain tried to make himself of stone well if I have one wish in life it is to see that fellow come to the fate he deserves I'll never lose sight of him I'll dog him like a bloodhound and what good will that do when Tom Tom we must move heaven and earth for petitions I'll take them up myself and get George Rivers to take me to the home secretary never fear while there's justice in heaven here's Henry exclaimed Tom withholding his father who had almost ran against the brother as they encountered around a corner he was pale and bewildered and hardly seemed to hear the doctors hasty considerations that he would get a reprieve he sent me to meet you said Henry he wants you to go home to a I mean he says that is what he wants most for you to go to her now and to come to him tomorrow or when you can and he wants to hear how Aubrey is continued Henry as if dreamily repeating a lesson he saw them yes and that seems to trouble him most Dr. May was past speaking and Tom was obliged to answer for him that Aubrey was pretty well again and had desired his dearest dearest love then asked how Leonard was calm and firm as ever said Henry have choked nothing seems to upset him but speaking of of you and Aubrey Dr. May and poor aid but but they'll be together before long no such thing said Dr. May you will see that certainty cures when suspense kills and for him I'll never believe but that all will be right yet are you going home I shall try to be with with the dear unhappy boy as long as I can and then I'll come home Dr. May grasped Henry's hand gave a promise of coming and a message of love to the prisoner tried to say something more but broke down and let Tom lead him away end of chapter 14 recording by Nancy Cochran Gergen Gilbert Arizona Chapter 15 of the trial this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer these visit LibriVox.org recording by Nancy Cochran Gergen Gilbert Arizona the trial by Charlotte Murray Young Chapter 15 under the shroud of his thunder cloud why we still when his voice is loud and our heart shall feel the love note still as the bird sings after the thunder peel CFA not till dusk could Dr. May get back to Stoneboro and then in an evening gleam of that stormy day who was met at the gate of Bankside by Richard and Ethel you need not come in Papa said Ethel she is asleep she knows Dr. May side with unspeakable relief Mr. Bramshaw telegraphed and his court came down it was not so very bad she saw it in our faces and she was so worn out with talking and watching that that the very turning her face to the wall with hope over became sleep almost directly that as well murmured the doctor and can you be spared my dear if you could come I should be glad for poor Aubrey is quite done up I can come Marius with her and Richard will stay to meet Henry if he is coming home or to send up if they want you but I think she will not wait for many hours and then Oh what can anyone do so Richard turned back to the sorrow for house and Dr. May tenderly drawing Ethel's arm into his own told her as they walk back the few incidents that she most wanted to hear as best you could narrate them you have had a heartbending day my dear he said you and Mary as well as the rest of us there was one comfort said Ethel and that was his own notes Eve has all that he has written to her from Whitford under her pillow and she kept spreading them out and making us read them and Oh their braveness and cheeriness they do quite seem to hold one up and then poor little men is constantly a robin sure of a fate God will not let them hurt him one could not bear to tell the child that though indeed they cannot hurt him it may not be in her sense look here these are her slippers she has worked on all day to finish them that they might be done and out of sight when he came home this evening the last stitch was done as Richard came in and now I thought I could only take them out of everyone's sight or things or things and how was it with the child when she heard the old sweet note said Ethel less deadly than she had yet spoken nothing could hurt him for what he had not done I don't know whether she knows what what is in store at least she is not shaking yet your child and a how did you manage with her for all the day Oh we did as we could we tried reading things Mr. Wormott had marked but she was too restless her hands would wander off to the letters caressing them and she would go back to talk of him all his ways from a baby upwards I hope there was no harm in letting her do it for if there's anything to do on good it is his noble spirit if you had only seen his face today exclaimed the doctor half angrily you would not feel much comfort in the cutting off such a fellow no it won't be will petition petition petition and save him we will men will be right yet they shall not hurt him is there really hope in that way said Ethel and a quiver of relief agitated her whole frame every hope everyone I have seen or Tom either says so we have only to draw up a strong enough representation of the facts his character and all that and there's his whole conduct before and since to speak for itself why when it was all over George heard everyone saying either he was a consummate hypocrite or he must be innocent Harvey Anderson declares the press will take it up we shall certainly get him off you don't mean pardon commutation of the penalty come on said the doctor hurrying at his headlong pace there's no time to be lost and getting it ever was dragged on so fast that she could not speak but it was with willing haste for this was the sort of suspense in which motion and purpose were great relief after the days weary waiting Gertrude quite spent with excitement and tears had wisely to take in herself to bed and it would have been well had Aubrey followed her example instead of wandering up and down the room in his misery flushed the one in petuously talking by jury and abusing dignitaries they let him have it out in all its fury and violence till he had tired out his first vehemence and could be persuaded to lie on the sofa while the rough draft of the petition was drawn up Tom writing and everyone suggesting for discussing till the doctor getting thorough mastery over the subject dictated so slowly and admirably that even Tom had not a word to gain say but observe to Ethel when his father had gone up to bed and carried I'll be off but an exceedingly able man my father is is this the first time you have found that out said Ethel why you know what is not his nature to make the most of himself but stepping under him brings it out more and there's a readiness about hand that I wish was catching but I say Ethel what's this I no more doubt who did the deed then I do who killed Able but I had once seen Cain's face and I knew it again is it true that the boy was aware and told my father did he tell you so only asked if you betrayed the secret if they both know it why if it be Leonard's taste I suppose I must say nothing to the contrary but he might as well consider his sister what do you know Tom said she perplexed only that there's some secret and if it be as I am given to understand then it is a frenzy that no lucid person should commit no Tom said Ethel feeling that the whole must be told it is no certainty only unsupported suspicion which he could not help telling Papa after binding him on honor to make no use of it putting things together he was sure who the man in the yard was but it was not recognition and he could not have proved it what quick surgery moved my father not to put the lawyers on the scent Ethel explained and for her pains Tom fell upon her for her folly and not having told him all when he could have gone to Bloor and gathered information as no professional person could do then lamented that he had let Aubrey keep him from the inquest when the fellows hanged off the book would have been sure to suggest to him to set and percent to get him searched even now he would go to the mill and try to have something Tom remember Papa's promise do you think a man can do nothing without committing himself like poor Aubrey no Ethel the doctor may be clever but that's no use if a man is soft and he is uncommonly soft and you should not encourage him in it Ethel was prevented from expressing useless indignation by the arrival of Mary asking where Papa was gone to bed he said he must go off at six tomorrow there are so many patients to see Eve does not want him I hope No she is still asleep I was only waiting for Richard and he had dreadful work with that poor Henry what kind of work Oh I believe it has all come on him now that it is his fault driving Leonard to that place and he was in such misery that Richard could not leave him I am glad he has the grace to feel it at last said Tom it must be very terrible said Mary he says he cannot stay in the house for everyone who approaches him and he groaned as if he was in tremendous bodily pain what you assisted at the scene said Tom looking at her rather sharply No but Richard told me and I heard the groans as I sat on the stairs sat on the stairs yes I could not go back the car and how long towards an hour I believe I did all that peace said Mary displaying a couple of inches of a stocking leg and I think it was pretty well in the dark sitting on the stairs for an hour in the dark said Tom as he gave Mary the candle he had been lighting for her that may be called unappreciated devotion I never can tell what Tom means said Mary as she went upstairs with Ethel it was a very comfortable rest I wish you'd had the same dear Ethel you look so tired and worn out let me stay and help you it has been such a sad long day and oh how terrible this is and you know I'm better than any of us except Albury Mary stopped almost in dismay for her sister usually so firm broke down entirely and sitting down on a low chair threw an arm round her and resting her weary brow against her gave way to long pure mass sobs or rather catches of breath Oh Mary Mary she said between her gasps to think of last year and cool and the two bright boys and the visions and the light in those glorious eyes and that this should be the end dear dear Ethel said Mary with fast flowing tears and tender caresses you have kept us all up you have always shown us it was for the best it is it is cried Ethel I do I will believe it if I had only seen his face his papa tells of it I could keep hold of the glory of it and the martyr spirit now I only see his earnest shy confiding look and and I don't know how to bear it and Ethel's grasp of Mary in both arms was tightened as if to support herself under her deep they bring subs of anguish ah he was very fond of you there never was anyone beyond our own self said love me so well I always knew it would not last that I not not but oh it was endearing and I did think to have seen him a shining light and don't you tell us he is a shining light now said Mary among the tears that really almost seemed to be relieved as if her sister herself has shed them and as she knelt down at the later head on her shoulder and spoke more calmly he is she said and I ought to be thankful for it I think I'm generally but now it makes it the more piteous the hopes the spirit the determination all to be quenched and so quenched and have nothing nothing to do for him but Ethel Papa says your messages do him more good than anything will let you go and see him and that will comfort him Ethel's lips give a strange sort of smile she thought it was that simple Mary's trust in her power but it would hardly have been there but for the species of hope thus excited and the sense of sympathy Mary was not one to place any misconstruction on what had passed she well knew that Leonard had almost taken a brother's place in Ethel's heart and she prized him at the rate of her sister's esteem perhaps were those who fancy that Ethel's lofty faith was unfeeling and how very good Leonard must be to be thus mourned at any rate she was an excellent comforter in the sympathy that was neither too acute nor too obtuse and purely to oblige her Ethel for the first time submitted to her favorite panacea of hairbrushing and found that in very truth those soft and steady manipulations were almost mesmeric in soothing away and bringing on a gentle and slumberous resignation the sisters were earliest to her next morning to inflict on their father a cup of cocoa which she rebelled against but swallowed and to receive his last orders chiefly consisting of messages to Tom about taking the petition to be approved by Dr. Spencer and others and then having it properly drawn out Mary asked if women might sign it and was answered within inpatient a shower said Mary with some diffidence could not we have one his lips were compressed for another Shaw when he but thought himself well I don't know the more the better only won't do for you to set it going Laura must be the woman for that oh then cried Mary eagerly might not I walk over to breakfast at the Grange and talk to Flora Ethel you would not mind going to Eve instead or will you go to Flora you had better said Ethel I must stay on Aubrey's account and this is her doing Mary she added looking at her warmly then put on your hat Mary and take a biscuit said the doctor and you shall have a lift as far as the crossroads thus the morning began with action and with hope Mary found herself very welcome at the Grange where there was much anxiety to hear of Aubrey as well as the more immediate sufferers the rivers had died at Drydale and had let the judges as well as good many of the County gentlemen who had been on the grand jury and attended on the trial they had found everyone most deeply touched by the conduct of the prisoner the judge had talked to Flora about her young brother and the friendship so bravely vouched had asked the particulars of the action to which Leonard had alluded and shown himself much interested in all that she related she said that the universal impression was that the evidence was dead against Leonard and taken apart that to such conviction of his guilt that no one could wonder at the verdict but that his appearance and then a research that it was almost impossible under their influence not to credit his innocence she had reason to believe that petitions were already in hand both from the County and the Assized town and she eagerly caught at Mary's proposal of one from the ladies of Stoneboro all drive in at once before lunch and take you home Mary she said and first of all we will begin with the two widows and half the battle will be one nay more than half the battle proved to be already gained in that quarter the writing table was covered with sheets of full scap and mrs. Pugh was hard at work copying the petition which Mr. Harvey Anderson had kindly assisted in composing and which the ant and niece had intended to have brought to the range for mrs. Rivers approval that very day Harvey Anderson had spent the evening at mrs. Ledwiches and drying it up and giving his advice and Flora going over at word for word with mrs. Pugh felt that it could hardly have been better worded he is a very clever a very rising young man and so feeling said mrs. Ledwich to marry while this was going on in fact he is a perfect night Aaron on his subject he is gone to London this morning by means of the press I tell Matilda it is quite a romance of modern life and indeed the sweet girl is very romantic still very young even after all she has gone through not understanding this Mary let it pass and calculations on the number of possible signatures which the two ladies undertook to collect that is well said Flora as they went away it could not be in better hands it will thrive the better for our doing nothing with writing or names they met Tom on the like Aaron but not very sanguine for he said there had of late been an outcry against the number of reprieves granted and the public had begun to think itself not sufficiently protected he thought the best chance was the discovery of some additional fact that might tell in favor of Leonard and confident in his own sagacity was going to make perquisitions at the Mill everyone had been visiting of late and now that he knew more if he and his microscope could detect one drop of human blood in an unexpected place they would do better service to the prisoner than all the petitions that could be signed Avery was somewhat better the fever shness had been removed by her long sleep of despair and her energy revived under the bodily relief and the fixed purpose of recovering in time to see her brother again but the improvement was not yet trusted by Henry who feared her doing he was himself watching over her and therefore only paid Leonard a short visit in the forenoon going and returning by early trains he reported that Leonard was very pale and own to want of sleep adding however it does not matter why should I wish to lose any time common brave as ever he had converse as truthfully as Henry's misery will commit inquiring into the plans of the family which he knew were to depend on his fate and acquiescing in his brother's intention of quitting the country nay even suggesting that it might be better for his sisters to be taken away before all was over though he as well as Henry knew that to this ever would never have consented he had always been a great reader of travels and he became absolutely eager in planning their life in the wild as if where they were he must be till the casual mention of the word rifle brought him to sudden silence and consciousness of the condensed cell but even then it was only to be urgent in consoling his brother and crowding message on message for his sisters begging Henry not to stay not to consider him for a moment but only whatever might be best for AVE in this frame Henry had left him and laid in the afternoon Dr. May had contrived to dispatch his work and make his way to the jail where as he entered he encountered the chaplain Mr. a very worthy but not a very acute man pausing to inquire for the prisoner he was met by a look of oppression and perplexity the chaplain had been with young Ward yesterday evening and was only just leaving him but then instead of the admiring words the doctor expected there only came a complaint of the difficulty of dealing with him so well instructed so respectful and manner and yet there was a coldness a hardness about him amounting rejecting all attempts to gain his confidence or bring him to confession doctor may had almost been angry but he thought himself in time that the chaplain was bound to believe the verdict of the court and besides the goodman looks so grieved and pitiful that it was impossible to be displeased with him especially when he began to hope that the poor youth might be less reserved with the person who knew him better and to consult doctor may which of the stone borer clergy influential with him doctor may recommended Mr. Wilmot as having visited the boy in his illness as well as prepared him for confirmation and then with a heavier load of sadness on his heart followed the turnkey on his Melon Collie way when the door was opened he saw Leonard sitting loosely on the side of his bed resting his head on his hand entirely unoccupied but at the first perception who his visitor was and coming within the arms held out to him rested his head on the kind shoulder my dear boy my brave fellow said doctor may you got through yesterday nobly there was not either of the calmness or the reserve of which doctor may have been told in the hot hands that were ringing his own nor in the choking stroking voice had tried to make the words clear thank you for what you said and dear Aubrey how is he I came away at six before he was awake said the doctor but he will not be the worse for it never fear I hope his evidence was less trying than you and he expected Leonard half smiled I had forgotten that he said it was so long ago no indeed the dear fellow was like a bright spot in that day only only it brought back all we were all that is gone forever the tenderness of one whom he did not feel bound to uphold like his brother had produced the outbreak that could not fail to come to so warm open and sensitive in nature and at such an age he was bold and full of fortitude in the front of the ordeal and solitude pinup his feelings but the fatherly sympathy and perfect confidence drew forth expression an event once opened the rush of a motion and anguish long repressed was firing his youthful manhood struggle hard but the strangled sobs only shook his frame the more convulsively and the tears burnt like drops of fire as they fell among the fingers that he spread over his face in the agony of weeping for his young vigorous life his blasted hopes the wretchedness he caused the disgrace of his name don't don't fight against it said Dr. May affectionally drawing him to his seat on the bed as indeed the violence of the proxies and made him scarcely able to stand let it have its way you will be all the better for it it ought to be so it must and in tears himself the doctor turned his back and when as far away as the cell would permit turning towards the books that lay on a narrow ledge that served for a table how long oh lord how long were the words that caught his eye in the open psalms and startled as if an unauthorized prime he looked up at the dull screened and sparked window above his hand till he knew by the sound that the worst of the uncontrollable passion had spin itself and then he came back with a towel dipped in water and cooled the flushed heated face as a sister might have done oh thank you I am ashamed gas the still sobbing boy ashamed no I like you the better for it said the doctor earnestly there's no need that we should not grief together in this great affliction and say out all that is in our hearts all exclaimed Leonard no no words can say that oh was it for such as this that my poor mother made so much of me and I got through the fever and I hoped and I strove why why should I be cut off for a disgrace and a misery to all and again came the heartbroken sobs though that's violently not to those who look within and honor you Leonard within why how bad I have been since this is the reckoning I deserve it I know but and his voice again sank in tears Ethel says that you're so feeling comforts her the most to know that you have not the terrible struggle of faith disturbed by injustice if I have not said Leonard it is her doing in those happy days when we read Marmean and could not believe that God would not always show the right she showed me how we only see bits and scrapes of his justice here and it works round in the end nay if I had not done that thing to Henry I should not be here now it is right it is right he exclaimed between the heaving sobs that's still occurred I do try to keep before me what she said about Joe when it comes burning before me why should that man be at large and I hear or when I think how his serpent I fell under mine when I tried that one word about the receipt that would save my life Oh that receipt better to be here than in his plates after all I'd rather be a street sweeper bitterly began Leonard Oh Dr. May do let me have that he cried suddenly changing his tone and holding on his hand as he perceived in the doctor's buttonhole a dub pink presented at a cottage door by a grateful patient for a space he was entirely occupied with gazing into his crimson depths inhaling the fragrance and caressingly spreading the cold to mask pedals against his hot cheeks and eyelids it is so long since I saw anything but walls he said three weeks sadly replied the doctor there was a gleam of sunshine when I got out of the van yesterday I never knew before what sunshine was I hope it will be a sunny day when I go out for the last time my dear boy I have good hopes of saving you there's not a creature in stone borough around it that is not going to petition for you and at your age Leonard shook his head in dejection it has all gone against me he said they all say there's no chance the chaplain says it is of no use unsettling my mind the chaplain is an old began doctor may catching himself up only just in time and asking how do you get on with him I can hear him read said Leonard with the look that had been thought solemn but you cannot talk to him not while he thinks be guilty then had a sound of warm sympathy from his friend he added I suppose it is his duty but I wish he would keep away I can't stand his aiming and making me confess and I don't want to be disrespectful I see I see it cannot be otherwise but how would it be if Wilmot came to you with Mr. May said Leonard with a besieging look Richard he would with all his heart but I think he would find more support and comfort in a man of Mr. Wilma's age and experience and that Mr. Reeve would have more trust in him but it shall be exactly as will be most comforting to you if Mr. Wilmot would be so good then said Leonard Meekly indeed I want help to bear it patiently I don't know how to die and yet it seemed not near so hard a year ago when they thought I did not notice and I heard a go away crying and my mother murmuring again and again that I will be done the last time I heard a voice oh say it now well that her son can say it I want to be able to say it said the boy permanently but this seems so hard life is so sweet then after a minute is thought Dr. May that morning when I woke and asked you for them Papa and Mama you knelt down and said the Lord's prayer won't you now? and when those words had been said and they both stood up again Leonard added it always seems to me more and more but oh Dr. May that forgiving I can't ask anyone but you if and he paused if you forgive my poor boy nay are not your very silence and forbearance signs of practical forgiveness besides I have always observed that you have never used one of the epithets that I can't think of him without some feelings are too strong for common words of abuse said Leonard almost smiling but I hope I may be helped to put away what is wrong Oh must you go? I fear I must my dear I have a patient to see again on my way back and one that will be the worse for waiting Henry has not been able to practice I want to ask one thing Dr. May before you go could not you persuade them since I've been to them at any rate to go at once it would be better for my sisters and being here when and they would only remember that last Sunday at home do you shrink from another meeting with April his face was forced into calmness I will do without it if it would hurt her it may for the time but to be withheld would give her a worse heartache through life Oh thank you cried Leonard his face lighting up it is something still to hope for nay I've not given you up yet said the doctor trying for a cheerful smile I've got a prescription that will bring you through yet London advice you know I've great faith in the consulting surgeon at the home office by the help of that smile and augury the doctor got away terribly beaten down but living on his fragment of hope though obliged perceived that everyone who knew the southern newspaper report in black and white without coming into personal contact with the prisoner could not understand how the slightest question of the justice of the verdict could arise even Mr. Wilma was so convinced by the papers that the doctor almost repented of the mission to which he had invited him and would if he could have revoked what had been said but the vicar of Stomer painful as was the duty felt his post be by the side of his unhappy young commissioner equally whether the jail chaplain or dr. may will write and if he had to bring him to confession or to strengthen him to endure grief suffering wrongfully and after the first interview no more doubts on that score were expressed but the vicar's tone of pitting reverence in speaking of the prisoner was like that of his friends in the high street how may spared neither time nor pains in beating up for signatures for the petition but he had more to find hope namely that of detecting something that might throw the suspicion into the right quarter the least contradiction of the evidence might raise a doubt that would save Leonard's life and bring the true criminal and peril of the fate he so richly deserved the ventry mill was the lion of the neighborhood and the crowds of visitors had been reasoned for its new masters vacating it and going into lodgings in Whitford so that Tom when he found it convenient to forget his contempt of the gazers and curiosity hunters who throng there and to march off on a secret expedition of investigation found no obstacle in his way and at the cost of a fee to Mrs. Giles who was making a fortune was free to roam and search wherever he pleased even his careful examination of the cotton blind and the scraping of the windows seal with the knife were not remarked for had not the great share been hacked into fragmentary relics and the loose paper of the walls of Leonard's room been made mince beat of as memorials of the murderer board one long white hair picked out of a mat below the window and these scrapings of the windows seal Tom carried all and also the scrapings of the top bar of a style between the mill and the three goblets that evening all were submitted to the microscope Dr. May was wait from a dose by a very deferential I beg your pardenser and a sudden tweak which abstracted a silver thread from his head and map showed somewhat greater displeasure and a similar act of plunder upon her white shimmy set but the spying was followed by a sigh and in dumb show hath always made to proceed that the ventry hair had more affinity with a canine human as to the scrapings of the window nothing but vegetable fiber could there be detected but on the style there was undoubtedly a mark containing blood discs Tom proved that both by comparison with his books and by pricking his own finger and kept Ethel to see it after everyone else was gone up to bed but his one person's blood was like another's who could tell whether someone with a cut finger had not been through the style Tom shook his head there was not yet enough on which to commit himself but I'll have him I'll have him yet said he meantime Harvey Anderson did Yeoman's service by a really powerful article in a leading paper written from the very heart of an ableman who had been strongly affected himself and was well-practiced in feeling yin tin and ink every word rang home to the soul and all the more because there was no defense nor declamation against the justice of verdict which was acknowledged to be unavoidable it was merely a pathetic delianation of a terrible mystery with a little meditative philosophy upon it the moral of which was that nothing is more delusive than fact more untrue than truth however it was copied everywhere and had the great effect of making it the cue of more than half the press to mourn over rather than condemn the unfortunate young gentlemen mrs. pew showed everyone the article and confided to most that she had absolutely ventured to suggest two or three of the sentences but a great deal might be born for mrs. pew in consideration of her indefatigable exertions with the ladies petition and it was a decided success the last census had rated market stone borough at 7,561 inhabitants and mrs. pew's petition bore no less than 3,024 female names in which she fairly beat that the mayor but then she had been less scrupulous as to the age at which people should be asked to sign as long as the name could be written at all she was not particular who's it was doctor may may be his patients agree to accept as his substitute doctor spencer or mr. right to whom Henry ward intended to resign practice and house he himself was to go to London for a couple of nights with George Rivers who was exceeding gratified at having a charge of him all to himself and considered that the United Islands of member and mayor must prevail doctor Spencer on the contrary probably by way of warning represented Mr. Mayor as running everything by his headlong way of setting about it declaring that he would abuse everybody all around and assure the home secretary that as sure as his name would stick may it was quite impossible the boy could have heard of fly though a strict sense of truth would lead him to add the next moment nearly demolished his brother doctor may talk to this caution and good behavior which may be were somewhat increased by this caricature but he ended by very hardy wishes that these were the times of genie deans if the pardon dependent on our own good queen he should not doubt of it for a moment why was not the boy just the age of her own son and verily there was genie deans so member and mayor went to London together and intense for the prayers that speeded them and followed them the case was laid before the home secretary the petitions presented and doctor may said all that man might say on ground where he felt as if over partisanship might be perilous the matter was to have due consideration nothing more definite or hopeful could be obtained but there could be no doubt that this meant a real and calm reweighing of the evidence with a consideration of all the circumstances it was something for the doctor that a second dispassionate study should be given to the case but his heart sank as he thought of that cold hard statement of evidence without the counter testimony of the honest tearless eyes and simple good faith of the voice and tone and when he entered the railway carriage on his road home the newspaper the George Rivers attentively pressed upon him bore the information that Wednesday the twenty first would be the day according to usage for the execution of the condemned criminal Leonard acts where they would if it had been for the execution of Richard May the doctor could hardly have given a deeper groan he left the train at the county town he had so arranged that he might see the prisoner on his way home but he had hardly the heart to go except that I knew he was expected and no disappointment that he could help must add to the pangs of these last days Leonard was alone but was not as before sitting unemployed he carefully laid down his etching work ere he came forward to meet his friend and there was not the bowed and broken look about him but a fixed calmness and resolution as he claimed the fatherly embrace and blessing with which the doctor now always met him I bring you no certainty Leonard it is under consideration thank you you have done everything return Leonard quietly and then pausing he added I know the day now the day after my birthday let us let us hope said the doctor really agitated thank you again said Leonard and there was a pause during which doctor may anxiously studied the face which had become as pale and almost as thin as when the lad had been sent off to come and infinitely older in the calm steadfastness of every feature you do not look well Leonard no I am not quite well but it matters very little said with a smile I am well enough to make it hard to believe how soon all sense in motion will be gone out of these fingers and he held up his hand and studied the minutia of his movements with a strange grave sort of curiosity don't don't Leonard explained the doctor you may be able to bear it but I cannot I thought you would not mind you have so often watch death yes but and he covered his face with his hands I wish it did not pain you all so much said Leonard quietly but for that I can feel it to be better than if I had gone into fever when I had no sense to think or repent or if I had I hardly do my own falls you seem much happier now my boy yes said Leonard I am more used to the notion and Mr. Wilmot has been so kind then I am to see if tomorrow issues well enough Henry has promised to bring her and leave her alone with me and I do hope that I shall be able to convince her that it is not so very bad for me and then she may be able to take comfort you know she would if she were nursing me now in my bed at Bankside so why should she not when she sees that I don't think this is any worse but rather better the doctor was in no mode to think any comfort possible in thus losing one like Leonard and he did not commit himself to an untruth there was a silence again and Leonard opened his book and took out his etchings one which he had already promised the doctor another and at the third the doctor exclaimed inarticulately surprise and adoration it was a copy of the well-known cross-bring form in the Magdalen college chapel altarpiece Tron and Penn and Inc. on a half sheet of thick note paper but somehow into the entire face and figure there was infused such an expression as Nelman comes direct from the soul of the draftsman an inspiration entirely independent of manual and that copies however exact failed to render nay which the artist himself fails to renew the beauty the meekness the hidden majesty of the countenance were conveyed in a marvelous manner and were such as would bring a tear to the eye of the gazer even had the drawing been there alone to speak for itself this is you're doing Leonard I have just finished it it has been one of my greatest comforts ah doing those lines and he pointed to the thorny crown I seem to get ashamed of thinking this hardness only think doctor may from the very first moment the policeman took me in charge nobody has said a rough word to me I have never felt otherwise than that they meant justice to have its way as far as they knew but they were all consideration for me to think of that and then go over the scoffs and scourgings there was a bright glistening tear in Leonard's eye now it seems like child's plate to go through such a trial as mine yes you have found the secret of willingness and added the boy hesitating between the words but feeling that he must speak them as the best balm through the sorrow he was causing even my little touch of the shame and scorn of this does make me know better what it must have been and yet so thankful when I remember why it was that I think I could gladly bear a great deal more than this is likely to be oh my boy I have no fears for you now yes yes have fears cried Leonard hastily pray for me you don't know what it is to wake up at night and know something is coming nearer and nearer and then this before one can remember all that blesses it or the night of that agony and that he knows what it is do we not pray for you said Dr. May fervently in church and at home and it's not this an answer am I to take this drawing Leonard that speaks so much if if you think Miss May would let me send it to her thank you it will be very kind of her and please tell her if it had not been for that time at Coom I don't know how I could ever have felt the ground under my feet if I have one wish that never can be what wish my dear dear boy don't be afraid to say is it to see her it was said Leonard but I did not mean to say it I know it cannot be but Leonard she has said that if you wished it she would come as if you were lying on your bed at home and with more reverence large tears of gratitude were swelling in Leonard's eyes and he pressed the doctor's hand but still said almost inarticulately ought she I will bring her my boy it will do her good to see how how her pupil as they have always called you in joke Leonard can be willing to bear the cross after his master she has never let go for a moment the trust that it was well with you Oh doctor may it was the one thing and when I had gone against all her wishes it is so good of her it is the one thing and there was no doubt from his face that he was indeed happy and doctor may when home that day softened and almost cheered well now as though he had had a promise of Leonard's life and convinced that in the region to which the spirits of FL and her pupil could mount resignation with silence the waylings of grief and sorrow the things invisible were more than a remedy for the things visible that Ethel should see Leonard before the last he was quite resolved and Ethel finding that so it was left though when in his hands knowing the concession to be so great that it must be met by grateful patients on her own side treasuring the drawing meanwhile with feelings beyond speech doctor may did not wish the meeting to take place till he was really sure that a hope was at an end he knew it would be a strong measure and though he did not greatly care for the world in general he did not want to offend Flora unnecessarily in matters of propriety she was a little bit of a conscience to him and though he would break her or anyone else when the thing was right especially if or to give one last moment of joy to Leonard she was not to be said it not till and for one day the sight of Aver would be enough she had struggled into something sufficiently like recovery to be able to maintain her fitness for the exertion and Henry had recognized that the unsatisfied timing was so praying on her as to hurt her more than the meeting and parting could do since little as he could understand how it was he perceived that Leonard could be dependent on for support and comfort with him indeed Leonard had ever shown himself sureful and resolute speaking of anything rather than of himself and never grieving him with the sight of those failings of flesh and heart that would break forth where there was more congenial sympathy yet where they were not a reproach so April with many a promise to be good and strong impressed with warnings at the chance of another meeting dependent on the effects of this one was laid back in the carriage leaving poor little men to Mary's consolation men was longing to go too but Henry had forbidden it and not even an appeal to Dr. May had prevailed so she was taken home by Mary and with a child's touching patience was helped through the weary hours giving wandering though general attention to Ella's eager display of the curiosities of the place and explanations of the curious games and puzzles taught by Mr. Tom Ethel watching the sweet wistful face and hearing the subdued voice felt the reverence towards the child as though somewhat of the shadow of her brother's cross had fallen on her. The elder brother and sister meanwhile arrived at the building now only too familiar to one of them and under her thick veil unconscious of the pitting looks of the officials Aver was led leaning on Henry's arm along the white wash passages with their slate floors and up the iron stairs the clear hard like coldness chilling her heart with a sense of the stern relentless inevitable grasp in which the victim was held the narrow iron door flew open at the touch of the turnkey a hand was on her arm but all swam round with her and she only knew it was the well-known voice she did not follow the words between her brothers and the turnkey about the time she was to be left there but she gave a start and shutter when the door swung fast again behind her and at the same instant she felt herself upheld by an arm round her waist take off your bonnet Abe let me see you he said himself undoing the strings and removing it then bending his face to hers for a long almost insatiable kiss as they stood strained in one intense embrace all in perfect silence on the sister's part I have been making ready for you he said and leaned partly releasing her you are to sit here and he deposited her still perfectly passive in his hands upon his bed her back against the wall put up your feet there and having settled her to his satisfaction he knelt down on the floor one arm round her waist one hand in hers looking earnestly up into her face with his soul in his eyes her other hand resting on his shoulder how are the little ones Abe very well meant us along to come better not said Leonard she is so little and these white walls might distress her fancy they will remember our singing on the last Sunday evening instead do you remember Abe how they beg to stay on and on till it grew so dark that we could not see a word or a note and went on from memory and he very softly hummed the restful cadence dying away into till in the ocean of the love we lose ourselves in heaven above how can you bear to think of those dear happy days because you will be glad of them by and by said Leonard and I am very glad of them now though they might have been so much better if only we had known they were the only happy days of all my life I hope not I trust not dearest you may an odd to have much better and happier days to come she shook her head with the look of inexpress well anguish almost of approach indeed I mean it he said I have thought it over many times and I see that the discomfort and evil of our home was in the spirit of pride and rebellion that I helped you to nurse it was like a wedge driving as farther and farther apart and now that it is gone and you will close up again when you are kind and yielding Henry what a happy peaceful home you may make out of it in the prayer and as if we could ever April could not you recover if I were dying now of sickness I know you would though you might not think so at the time believe me then when I say that I am quite willing to have it as it is to be my own man to the last to meet with such precious inestimable kindness from so many of course I should like to live longer and do something worth doing but if I am to die young there is so much blessing even in this way that nothing really agrees me but the thought of you and Henry and if it makes you one together even that is made up off struck and as if dreaming she did not answer only smooth and caressingly the long waves of bright brown hair on his forehead she was surprised by his next question a how has mrs. pubi hate oh the woman I have hardly thought of her she has been very active about the petition somebody said but I don't believe Henry can bear to hear of her any more than I can what made you think of her because I wanted to know how it was with Henry and I could not ask him poor fellow well a you see he will depend on you entirely for comfort and you must promise me that shall be your great business and care how do you think of Henry she said have jealously of course a you and I have no past to grieve over together but poor Henry will never feel free of having left me to my self-willed obscenity and let me go to that place besides the disgrace in the side of the world touches him more and you can tread that down more easily than he then in answer to a wondering look yes you can when you recollect that it is crime not the appearance of it that is shame I do not mean that I do not deserve all this but but and as I glistened a dear if I can only bring out the words to tell you how much peace enjoy there is a knowing that with that vast difference it is like in some degree what was born to save us I really don't think you could go on grieving over me anymore at least not more than for the loss he added tenderly and you'll not miss me so much in a new country you know with Henry and the children to take care of only promise me to be kind to Henry and having a faint promise that he knew would have more force by and by Leonard went on in his low quiet voice into reminiscences that sounded like random of the happy days of childhood and early youth sometimes almost laughing over them sometimes linking his memory as it were to tune or flower sport or study but always for joy and never for pain and thus past the time with long intervals of silent thought and recollection on his part and of a sort of dreamy stupor on his sisters during which the strange peaceful hush seemed to have taken away her power of recalling the bitter complaints of cruel injustice and the broken hearted lamentation she had imagined herself pouring out in sympathy with her victim brother instead of being rung with anguish her heart was lulled and quelled by wandering reverence and she seemed to herself scarcely awake and only dimly conscious of the pale cheeked bright-eyed face upturned to her so calm and undaunted yet so full of awe and love the low steady tender voice and the warm upholding arm a great clock struck and Leonard said there they were to come at four and then the chaplain is coming he has grown so very kind now Eve if they would let you be with me in my last communion I think then you would know all the piece of it oh yes make them let me come then it is not goodbye he said as he fetched her bonnet and cloak and put them on with tender hands as if she were a child in readiness as steps approached and her escort reappeared here she is Henry he said with a smile she has been very good she may come again and then holding her in his arms once more he resigned her to Henry saying not good bye Eve we will keep my birthday together end of chapter 15 recording by Nancy Cochran Gergen Gilbert Arizona